Yogya

We arrived in Yogyakarta after a crazy 6 hour travel journey (minibus ride). The area where we stayed, Marlioboro, is a street of batic stalls, street vendors and sidewalk eateries Indo style.

We found a nicish hotel, but again, as always in Indo, it required lots of haggling. It was still overpriced in my opinion, but we were both too tired to care. Hardest thing in the world is to find a restaurant that serves beer in an Islamic dominated city. Celia and i walked the streets flat looking for that elusive Bintang to quench our thirst. We eventually ended up back at our hotel and smashed a couple in record time.

Can't really remember what we did on the second day there, but a lot of our time is often spent trying to get flights to our next destination or try sort out odds and ends, Internet, blah blah. Very time consuming. I'm glad people actually read this. Oh yes.... we went to pizza hut for lunch. A nice change from nasi (rice) but as usual we ordered too much and totally stuffed our faces swearing to never go back there again. Pizzas these days are hilarious, you get a thick based pizza which obv. has melted cheeze on top, a base which contains cheese and these cheese finger type things around the edges loaded with extra cheese... (Borat: What is this.....???)

The evening ends up with a trip to the Sultans palace and the bird market. Apparently the Yogya people are very proud of their pet birds. The cages and local birds are very beautiful, some people also sold exotic reptiles and mammals - not sure how legal it is, but it made for some interesting photos. When we got back to the hotel room i turned on to one of the very few English channels we have there and was treated to one of the worst movies i have ever seen - "Frankenfish", can somebody please hire it one day, pleeeaaaaassseeee??

We end up at Bourbadour (think that's how one spells it) on the last day which is the biggest Buddhist temple in the world, yes you heard it, the world! It's a registered world heritage site and looks truly impressive from afar, just as the pyramids do, but when you get on it there's not too much to it if you don't really understand Buddism and all that. Sorry to sound so uneducated... i will try read up on it at a later stage.... NAAAAAATTTT!

One really funny moment, you had to be there though, was when our Indonesian driver was trying to call these passengers in the bus, they never heard him, so he shouted "Hey Japanese..." Was rolling off my chair laughing, only in Asia could someone get away with that.

Evening arrived and we set off on our 8 hour (supposedly) train journey to Jakarta Executif class. I am writing this now so we did survive the bumpy ride home, but oh my word...

Anyway I love Singapore airport..